al-Zarqawi
Ayman al-Zawahiri & bin Laden
Document Provides Glimpses Into Qaeda's Intentions
By DOUGLAS JEHL
WASHINGTON, Oct. 11 - A senior American intelligence official said today that a document obtained this summer by American forces in Iraq had provided the United States with "a comprehensive view of Al Qaeda strategy in Iraq and beyond" that provided a revealing glimpse into "the intentions of the enemy."
A complete version of the 6,000-word document, a letter in Arabic from Ayman al-Zawahiri, the No. 2 leader in Al Qaeda, to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the top terrorist in Iraq, was made available for the first time today. In it, Mr. Zawahiri told Mr. Zarqawi that the American occupation of Iraq had provided Islamic militants with an historic opportunity to win popular support.
"Our planning must strive to involve the Muslim masses in the battle, and to bring the mujahed movement to the masses and not conduct the struggle far from them," Mr. Zawahiri said in the letter, dated July 9.
Officials at the Defense Department and other government agencies first revealed the existence of the letter last week, but at the time agreed to release only three sentences from the document, mainly dealing with Mr. Zawahiri's warning that Mr. Zarqawi's forces should concentrate their attacks on Americans rather than on Iraqi civilians, and should refrain from the kind of gruesome beheadings and other executions that have been posted on Al Qaeda Web sites.
In releasing the full text today, in Arabic and English, the office of John D. Negroponte, the new director of national intelligence, took the extraordinary step of posting it on his office's Web site, www.dni.gov.
The letter, written in calm, sophisticated language, included injunctions to Mr. Zarqawi to keep in mind the political as well as the military aims of the anti-American insurgency in Iraq, where Mr. Zarqawi leads the group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. The American intelligence official said that a comprehensive review had left no doubt that it was sent by Mr. Zawahiri, a Egyptian physician who has served as Al Qaeda's principal strategist.
The letter alluded to difficulties facing the leadership of Al Qaeda, including what Mr. Zawahiri called "the real danger" posed by the Pakistani military in its searches for militants in northwestern Pakistan, near the Afghan border, where Mr. Zawahiri and Al Qaeda's leader, Osama bin Laden, are believed to be hiding.
But the American official said the letter also appeared to reflect an attempt by Mr. Zawahiri "to keep Mr. Zarqawi onside," most notably by warning him against staging additional attacks on Iraqi Shiites.
Mr. Zarqawi warned in a letter to Mr. bin Laden in January 2004 that he believed such a strategy was beneficial to his cause. But Mr. Zawahiri cast his July 9 letter as a reply, pointedly warning Mr. Zarqawi that such strikes amounted to "action that the masses do not understand or approve."
"As the English proverb says, the person who is standing among the leaves of the tree might not see the tree," Mr. Zawahiri wrote, adding, "I repeat the warning against separating from the masses, whatever the danger."
The letter was dated two days after the first wave of attacks on the London transportation system on July 7, but it made no mention of those strikes. In more recent communications, Mr. Zawahiri has described the attacks as being carried out by Al Qaeda. Whether or not that is true, American officials said it was possible that Mr. Zawahiri, who refers at several points to his difficulty in maintaining communications, had not received news of the London attacks by the time he wrote to Mr. Zarqawi.
In the letter, Mr. Zawahiri compared the fierce war of resistance that Iraqis and foreign fighters have waged in Iraq since March 2003 to the speedy fall of Afghanistan's Taliban government after the American-led invasion there in 2001.
"We don't want to repeat the mistake of the Taliban, who restricted participation in governance to the students and the people of Kandahar alone," Mr. Zawahiri wrote. "They did not have any representation for the Afghan people in their ruling regime, so the result was that the Afghan people disengaged themselves from them. Even devout ones took the stance of the spectator and, when the invasion came, the emirate collapsed in days, because the people were either passive or hostile."
He continued, "Therefore, I stress again to you and to all your brothers the need to direct the political action equally with the military action, by the alliance, cooperation and gathering of all leaders of opinion and influence in the Iraqi arena."
The American intelligence official would not say exactly when or how the document had been obtained, or whether it was believed to have been received by Mr. Zarqawi. The official said the United States government was releasing it "because we felt it important that the American public and the world be informed of the intentions of the enemy."
In the letter, Mr. Zawahiri wrote that Mr. Zarqawi might "ask an important question: What drives me to broach these matters while we are in the din of war and the challenges of killing and combat?"
"Things may develop faster than we imagine," Mr. Zawahiri wrote. "The aftermath of the collapse of American power in Vietnam - and how they ran and left their agents - is noteworthy. Because of that, we must be ready starting now, before events overtake us, and before we are surprised by the conspiracies of the Americans and the United Nations and their plans to
fill the void behind them."
It's a good thing that al-Zarqawi hasn't taken al-Zawahiri's advice on keeping the peace with the Shiites. We would be fighting a much larger enemy if the Shiites didn't hate al-Zarqawi so much.
al-Zarqawi
Ayman al-Zawahiri & bin Laden
Document Provides Glimpses Into Qaeda's Intentions
By DOUGLAS JEHL
WASHINGTON, Oct. 11 - A senior American intelligence official said today that a document obtained this summer by American forces in Iraq had provided the United States with "a comprehensive view of Al Qaeda strategy in Iraq and beyond" that provided a revealing glimpse into "the intentions of the enemy."
A complete version of the 6,000-word document, a letter in Arabic from Ayman al-Zawahiri, the No. 2 leader in Al Qaeda, to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the top terrorist in Iraq, was made available for the first time today. In it, Mr. Zawahiri told Mr. Zarqawi that the American occupation of Iraq had provided Islamic militants with an historic opportunity to win popular support.
"Our planning must strive to involve the Muslim masses in the battle, and to bring the mujahed movement to the masses and not conduct the struggle far from them," Mr. Zawahiri said in the letter, dated July 9.
Officials at the Defense Department and other government agencies first revealed the existence of the letter last week, but at the time agreed to release only three sentences from the document, mainly dealing with Mr. Zawahiri's warning that Mr. Zarqawi's forces should concentrate their attacks on Americans rather than on Iraqi civilians, and should refrain from the kind of gruesome beheadings and other executions that have been posted on Al Qaeda Web sites.
In releasing the full text today, in Arabic and English, the office of John D. Negroponte, the new director of national intelligence, took the extraordinary step of posting it on his office's Web site, www.dni.gov.
The letter, written in calm, sophisticated language, included injunctions to Mr. Zarqawi to keep in mind the political as well as the military aims of the anti-American insurgency in Iraq, where Mr. Zarqawi leads the group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. The American intelligence official said that a comprehensive review had left no doubt that it was sent by Mr. Zawahiri, a Egyptian physician who has served as Al Qaeda's principal strategist.
The letter alluded to difficulties facing the leadership of Al Qaeda, including what Mr. Zawahiri called "the real danger" posed by the Pakistani military in its searches for militants in northwestern Pakistan, near the Afghan border, where Mr. Zawahiri and Al Qaeda's leader, Osama bin Laden, are believed to be hiding.
But the American official said the letter also appeared to reflect an attempt by Mr. Zawahiri "to keep Mr. Zarqawi onside," most notably by warning him against staging additional attacks on Iraqi Shiites.
Mr. Zarqawi warned in a letter to Mr. bin Laden in January 2004 that he believed such a strategy was beneficial to his cause. But Mr. Zawahiri cast his July 9 letter as a reply, pointedly warning Mr. Zarqawi that such strikes amounted to "action that the masses do not understand or approve."
"As the English proverb says, the person who is standing among the leaves of the tree might not see the tree," Mr. Zawahiri wrote, adding, "I repeat the warning against separating from the masses, whatever the danger."
The letter was dated two days after the first wave of attacks on the London transportation system on July 7, but it made no mention of those strikes. In more recent communications, Mr. Zawahiri has described the attacks as being carried out by Al Qaeda. Whether or not that is true, American officials said it was possible that Mr. Zawahiri, who refers at several points to his difficulty in maintaining communications, had not received news of the London attacks by the time he wrote to Mr. Zarqawi.
In the letter, Mr. Zawahiri compared the fierce war of resistance that Iraqis and foreign fighters have waged in Iraq since March 2003 to the speedy fall of Afghanistan's Taliban government after the American-led invasion there in 2001.
"We don't want to repeat the mistake of the Taliban, who restricted participation in governance to the students and the people of Kandahar alone," Mr. Zawahiri wrote. "They did not have any representation for the Afghan people in their ruling regime, so the result was that the Afghan people disengaged themselves from them. Even devout ones took the stance of the spectator and, when the invasion came, the emirate collapsed in days, because the people were either passive or hostile."
He continued, "Therefore, I stress again to you and to all your brothers the need to direct the political action equally with the military action, by the alliance, cooperation and gathering of all leaders of opinion and influence in the Iraqi arena."
The American intelligence official would not say exactly when or how the document had been obtained, or whether it was believed to have been received by Mr. Zarqawi. The official said the United States government was releasing it "because we felt it important that the American public and the world be informed of the intentions of the enemy."
In the letter, Mr. Zawahiri wrote that Mr. Zarqawi might "ask an important question: What drives me to broach these matters while we are in the din of war and the challenges of killing and combat?"
"Things may develop faster than we imagine," Mr. Zawahiri wrote. "The aftermath of the collapse of American power in Vietnam - and how they ran and left their agents - is noteworthy. Because of that, we must be ready starting now, before events overtake us, and before we are surprised by the conspiracies of the Americans and the United Nations and their plans to fill the void behind them."
It's a good thing that al-Zarqawi hasn't taken al-Zawahiri's advice on keeping the peace with the Shiites. We would be fighting a much larger enemy if the Shiites didn't hate al-Zarqawi so much.
